"So, where are we going tomorrow?" Ty Lee asks.
She's currently walking on her hands, her long, dark braid hanging down and dragging a bit on the ground.
Toph shrugs, bringing an earth tent up from the ground with an abrupt sweep of her arm. "I dunno. I want to go to the Earth Kingdom eventually. But we can sightsee around the Fire Nation first."
Ty Lee makes a noise of assent and lets herself flop down onto the ground. The two are setting up camp on a cliff just outside Caldera City. It's the exact same place that she, Aang, Katara, and Sokka made camp before the Day of Black Sun. She's a little more relaxed now, though. To say the least.
"Could you make me a little rock house thingy, too? I didn't pack a tent."
Toph's eyes drift to Ty Lee's sparsely packed bag, which is sitting in the grass a few feet away. She's a little annoyed, but not surprised. "Sure."
"Thank you, Toph!"
"Sure."
A few rocks fall to the ground with a thump as Toph slams two more slabs of rock together.
Ty Lee has already proven to be an asset in Toph's journey. Nobody at the market where they stopped earlier today was impressed with Toph's painted tin coins, but Ty Lee packed plenty of real money in that tiny satchel of hers. They should be able to run a scam wherever they go tomorrow, though.
"We should go to Hira'a tomorrow!" Ty Lee suggests suddenly. "We visited there once with the circus, and they have a really good acting troupe."
Toph shrugs. "Okay. Shouldn't take much to outperform the only other Fire Nation actors I've seen."
"Where was that?"
"Ember Island."
"Oh, the Ember Island Players!" Ty Lee laughs in recognition. "Hey, they might not be the best, but I got to see those terrible actors every single year of my childhood. They have a special place in my heart." She clutches her hands to her chest and giggles.
"We are not going back there." Toph's voice is serious, but her shoulders shake slightly with laughter.
"When were you at Ember Island, anyway?"
"Like, last week. We were hiding at Zuko's family's old beach house before Sozin's Comet."
"Wow, Zuko must really like that place. We were all there before he ran off to join your group."
"Really?" Toph's eyes narrow. "Maybe he didn't care about the war at all. He just wanted another beach vacation."
"Better there than where I was." Ty Lee's voice becomes quieter, which Toph is not used to at all. She scrambles to remember what place Ty Lee's talking about.
Oh. Right.
"Right. When did they let you out of Boiling Rock, anyway?"
"A few days ago. I guess I'm lucky they let me out at all. I was loyal to Azula for...way too long."
Toph shrugs. "Well, we all make mistakes."
"Yep!" Ty Lee's voice is a little brighter now as she tries to change the subject. "So, how are we going to get to Hira'a tomorrow? I know a place near here where we can rent ostrich horses."
"Nah. I can't see on an ostrich horse. I see by sensing vibrations in the earth, so my feet need to be on the ground. I can just make us an earthbending train since we're traveling somewhere rural. It's a pretty easy way to travel."
"Okay. So wait. Can you sense what's underground, then?"
Toph nods.
"No way! That's so cool!"
Toph smiles. "You know, not enough people recognize my earthbending skills for the miracle that they are."
"I don't know if you've already sensed this, then, but there are a lot of secret underground tunnels that come out of the palace. We should follow one and see where it leads."
"I did find the underground bunker on the Day of Black Sun...I never bothered to see if there was anything else." Toph's lip twists, and her feet dig into the ground as she focuses on what's beneath her. "Yeah! I can feel them!"
"Oh, cool!" Ty Lee shifts her weight from side to side in excitement. "Can you get us down there?"
Toph scoffs. "Can I?"
She drops into a horse stance, brings her hands together, and curls them into fists. When she spreads her arms apart, a sloped hole opens up in the earth. She can feel Ty Lee recoil in surprise and hesitate to follow her as Toph starts walking into the hole.
"Come on! I've done this plenty of times before. It's perfectly safe."
Toph can feel Ty Lee hesitantly follow her into the new tunnel. Toph blasts away more rock with every few steps they take. Now that she's paying attention, she can feel a plethora of tunnels intersecting underground. She's chosen one at random to focus on.
It takes them about five minutes to get down, and eventually Ty Lee is right next to Toph instead of behind her, the acrobat's apprehension gradually fading. Toph's last earthbending motion is more careful than the ones that got her here. She slowly opens one last hole directly into the tunnel, taking care not to collapse the whole thing.
Ty Lee hops in in front of her, squinting in the dark that is only sparsely lit by torches mounted to the walls. "This is so cool! I don't think I've ever been in this tunnel before."
As the two continue down it, the small, narrow tunnel opens up into a vast room that is even more poorly lit than the tunnel itself.
Ty Lee's voice drops down into a whisper. "Wow. I can't even see the other side of this room."
"I can," Toph whispers back, even more quietly, putting a hand on Ty Lee's wrist. "And we're not alone."